'Mother—you shall know something more. I cannot tell how it is, it came over me like the bursting of a wave upon my head. I and Jack—that is—I—I mean that I love him.'
Her cheeks had become suffused, and she turned her face to the red rocks.
'What!'
Jane Marley stood still, and became rigid, with both arms extended at her side, stiff, and her hands clinched. Every muscle in her face was knotted.
'What! You—you and that fellow, Captain Rattenbury's son! Love him? Him of all people! Are you mad? You can never take him.'
'No, mother, that is true, I cannot take him, so long as this wicked injustice stands between us. I know that well enough. No, I cannot be his. You have parted us.'
'It is well. I would he had broken his neck.'
'Then I would have died also. Of what profit would it be to you to have and keep that which you have got, if through retaining it you were crushed with the knowledge that you had wronged him, and that I, for love of him whose death I had caused, had also perished?'
'I do not say that I have anything of his. But suppose it were as you fancy. Do you think anything would have brought me to do it—but care for you?'
'If for me you did what is wrong—for my sake now undo it.'